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Musical intervals (Western music) This page is part of www.amarilli.co.uk by Brian Capleton
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You will need Windows media player installed, or something else that can play mp3 files! Broadband is recommended
Continued...
We will here consider intervals of no more than 12 semitones.
Any two notes less than this distance apart will have two different note names. They might be plain alphabet letters, if they fall on what we now make the white keys, or the letter name might be suffixed with the term "flat" or "sharp" or "double flat" or "double sharp". All notes that fall on the black keys will have a suffix other than "natural". Even the white keys can be re-named with another suffix, depending on the musical context. For example, the key normally labeled F, can also be called E#. In tonal music there are definite rules for the names given to the keys in different musical contexts.
The correct name of a musical interval depends on the names given to its two notes. It does not just depend on which keys it falls, on the keyboard. Different musical intervals can often therefore be played on the same two keys, on a keyboard instrument. Acoustically, of course, exactly the same two note pitches will be played each time the same two keys are played. This means that on a standard keyboard instrument, each playable interval provides one musical approximation that serves for a number of different musical intervals. In the modern tuning system, called equal temperament, the difference between any of the musical intervals represented by any two keys, and the actual notes produced and heard, is small.
Before we can name a musical interval fully, we must know the note names of the two notes that make the interval.
First, we find the generic name of the interval, by counting up the number letters in the musical alphabet from the lower note name to the higher note name, ignoring any "flat" or "sharp" suffixes of any kind. Remember in the musical alphabet, there are only 7 letters, A, B, C, D, E, F and G, and whenever we get to G, we start again at A. We include both the starting letter and the ending letter.
For example, from E flat to B flat, we ignore the "flat" suffixes, and just count the letters from E to B, including the first and last letter, which is 5 letters: - E, F, G, A, B. This number tells us the generic interval name, in this case, a fifth (because it is five letters).
All the generic names are given in the table below.
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